


White

by SakuraChiyo



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: All the cheese, Drabble, F/M, Fluff, Hung up on the language thing, Japanese, One Shot, shallura - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-31
Updated: 2016-07-31
Packaged: 2018-07-28 09:06:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7634323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SakuraChiyo/pseuds/SakuraChiyo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Allura finds a new hobby in learning a language from Earth, and who better to teach her Japanese than Shiro?</p>
            </blockquote>





	White

As the princess of Altea, there were several skills Allura had needed to polish since birth in order to properly lead and represent her famously diplomatic people. The most expansive and seemingly infinite one was language. She spoke with native fluency in four languages, could socialize with diplomats in eight, and could deploy a few choice slang words in about twenty more. Though she had balked when Shiro told her that there were over six thousand languages on Earth, she decided to start with what he could teach her.

“How about…this?” Allura asked, reaching for the closest thing: her pillow.

“ _Makura_ ,” Shiro supplied the Japanese translation.

“ _Mah-koo-ruh,_ ” she repeated back, slowly, tasting the word on her tongue as she had with a whole new arsenal of vocabulary for the past hour.

“And this?” She patted the area of the bed between where they were sitting.

“ _Beddo_.”

“What!” Allura exclaimed, frowning, “It just sounds like ‘bed’ with an ‘oh’ sound on the end!”

Shiro grinned, amused by her indignation, “There are a lot of words like that. They’re called loanwords. On Earth, there are a lot of languages that borrow words from others. In Japanese…” he looked around Allura’s bedroom for another example.

When Allura had come to him a few days ago with the request that he tell her more about language on his planet, he had explained that learning all of Earth’s languages was virtually impossible. But he remembered clearly the way her eyes had lit up when he offered to teach her his native language, and she insisted they start immediately. Honestly, he would learn the other thousands of languages one by one if it would make her happy. Nevertheless, it would be an understatement to say that he didn’t mind the excuse to spend more time with her. In her room. Alone. Away from the prying eyes of the other paladins, who, while supportive, had a nasty habit of being a little too vocal. Lance had snorted gracefully into his food when Allura had cheerfully told the rest of the paladins the next morning at breakfast that Shiro was giving her “private lessons.” His snickering to Keith out of the corner of his mouth about all the “lessons” Shiro could teach her in “private” had earned the blue paladin a decidedly ruthless morning in the training room. Still worth it.

Shiro turned his eyes back to Allura, who was waiting eagerly for another word to learn. He loved the way her eyes shone in different hues the more she got excited. They melted and blurred the lines between blue and green and purple and all the colors in between…

“Well?” she prompted impatiently.

He started, settling on the example closest to where he was staring, “Ah…pink! There’s an older Japanese word for it, but most people just use the new loanword.”

Allura nodded excitedly, turning so that she was crossing her legs on the bed, facing him.

Shiro reached out and gently touched the pink crescents under her eyes with his thumb, “ _Pinku_.”

“ _Pin-koo_ ,” she repeated, leaning into his hand.

With a sudden idea in mind, Shiro moved his metal right hand to her purple earring, brushing her ear in passing. “ _Murasaki_ ,” he quietly translated.

Her eyebrows knitted together at the longer word, “ _Moo-rah-_ …one more time?” She eyed his lips to watch his pronunciation. ‘Just _to watch his pronunciation_ ,’ she thought to herself, getting distracted.

Shiro shifted so that he was facing her and scooted closer. He reached out with his left hand and indicated her other earring, “Purple. _Murasaki_.”

“ _Moo-rah-sah-kee_. _Murasaki_.” Allura noted, her eyes lingering on his lips. She lifted her hand to cover Shiro’s that was now resting on her right cheek. “Are we doing colors now?” she inquired with a smirk.

Shiro shrugged subtly, not unaware of her new focus of attention, “Seems as logical a category as any. Unless you want to go in a different direction…?”

“Hmm…” Allura contemplated, reaching out with her left hand to run her fingers through Shiro’s hair. “How about black?”

“ _Kuro_ ,” he whispered, leaning towards her.

She moved her hand to the white tuft at the front. “White?” she wondered, their faces a few inches apart.

Rather than answering immediately, Shiro laughed once before closing the distance between them to kiss her. She could feel his smile against her lips, causing a small giggle to burst from her mouth in response.

He pulled back after a few seconds, and she pressed a chaste kiss to his cheek before leaning back, grinning, “Why was that funny?”

A dusting of pink had appeared on Shiro’s cheeks, and they darkened as he deliberated. “White. It’s uh…it’s _shiro_.”

Allura blinked once before beaming in comprehension. “ _Shiro!_ I see! So your _name_ means ‘white’!”

He moved his left hand so that he was holding hers, cocking his head in contemplation, “My nickname does. My family name, Shirogane, actually means ‘silver’, but…Shiro seems even more appropriate now,” he amended, indicating his shock of white hair with his eyes.

Allura smiled slyly at him, “Well, now I suppose I have a favorite Japanese word.”

“Oh?” he looked back at her. He could feel his heart hammering a little faster.

“Mhmm,” she hummed, leaning in again so that their lips were almost touching. She felt his arms wrap around her, hands tangling in her own white hair.

“ _Shiro_ is my favorite,” she whispered against his lips before they came together again. As she pressed against him, pushing him back against her bed, she wondered if they might be able to add the categories of ‘clothes’ and ‘body parts’ to her vocabulary lesson for the night.

**Author's Note:**

> Just a little idea I had this afternoon. I'm super rusty in the fanfic world, but Shallura has brought me out of my cave. I'm a wreck!!
> 
> Shiro's last name, as mentioned above, actually means 'silver' (銀). Though it could also be written as 'white silver' (白銀), I think it's an excellent touch that his nickname is related to his unusual hair color.


End file.
